Will artificial sweeteners help you lose weight?
A new study adds to the ongoing debate about artificial sweeteners and whether they help or hurt with weight loss.
Nutrition Diva is hosted by Monica Reinagel. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
Have a nutrition question? Send an email to nutrition@quickanddirtytips.com or leave a voicemail at 443-961-6206.
Find Nutrition Diva on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to the newsletter for more diet and nutrition tips.
Nutrition Diva is a part of Quick and Dirty Tips.
Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/nutrition-diva-newsletter
https://www.facebook.com/QDTNutrition/
https://twitter.com/NutritionDiva
https://nutritionovereasy.com/
Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast. I’m your host, Monica Reinagel and today I want to update you on some new research that adds to the ongoing debate about artificial sweeteners and whether they help or hurt with weight loss. We’ll also talk about how all this might apply to natural zero-calorie sweeteners made from stevia and monkfruit.
Bur first, a little background.
It’s long been observed that people who use artificial sweeteners are more likely to be overweight. Of course, that doesn't prove that zero-calorie sweeteners cause you to gain weight. In fact, defenders of zero-calorie sweeteners argue that the association between use of these sweeteners and increased risk of diabetes or obesity is actually “reverse causation.” People aren’t developing diabetes because they use these sweeteners. They are using these sweeteners because they have diabetes.
However, a growing number of studies (including the one just released) offer a potential explanation for how these supposedly inert ingredients might actually be contributing to health issues. Although they don't directly raise your blood sugar, artificial sweeteners may affect how your body responds to the sugars in other foods, leading to elevated blood sugar and, possibly, insulin resistance, weight gain, or even Type 2 diabetes. The key turns out to be in the trillions of microbes that populate your gut.
People who are overweight tend to have different intestinal flora than normal-weight individuals. Further, it appears that these microbes actually play a big role in promoting obesity. When intestinal bacteria are transplanted from the guts of obese subjects into the guts of normal subjects, the normal subjects start gaining weight. And vice versa.
This is a pretty big revelation. Have you ever known someone who ate very little but remained overweight, or someone who could eat whatever they wanted and not gain a pound? For decades, we've chalked this up to differences in metabolism or physical activity. Sometimes, we even suspect that overweight people are simply eating more than they're admitting to. But a lot of this could actually be due to differences in their intestinal bacteria.
More recently, we’ve learned that zero-calorie sweeteners affect the makeup of your intestinal population. Although these sweeteners have no calories for us, they still provide a food source for your gut bacteria. Different bacteria appear to prefer different sweeteners. Lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, the beneficial bacteria found in yogurt and other probiotic foods, enjoy fructose, for example. A less helpful bacteria called Streptococcus mutans has an affinity for saccharine and aspartame (Equal). Streptococcus mutans has been associated with an impaired ability to process sugar… the first step toward Type 2 diabetes.
Whichever strains of bacteria you feed are going to proliferate in your gut, often at the expense of others.
This month, researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel released new research that adds yet more ammunition to this theory. The study involved 120 humans who did not typically consume zero-calorie sweeteners. The subjects then added six packets a day of various zero-calorie sweeteners to their diets. The researchers monitored changes in their gut microbiome and to their glucose response (using a continuous glucose monitor).
All of the sweeteners had an effect on the makeup of the gut microbiome—and all in different ways. Furthermore, both saccharine and sucralose (Splenda) had negative effects on the subjects’ ability to regulate their blood sugar.
Some would argue that there’s a big difference between an acute (and possibly temporary) effect on the microbiome and long term changes in someone’s health (such as developing diabetes or obesity). But it’s increasingly hard to argue that these ingredients are biologically “inert.” Drinking a diet soda—even one sweetened with stevia—is clearly not equivalent to drinking water.
When this research first began to emerge back in 2014, I immediately heard from lots of Nutrition Diva listeners who wanted to know whether these finding applied to more natural sweeteners like stevia or monkfruit. Although there’s not a ton of data on this, what we do have suggests that these sweeteners may be a better bet.
Unlike Equal and Splenda, which encourage the growth of Streptococcus mutans, stevia appears to encourage the growth of a strain called Bacteroides, which, in combination with a diet rich in vegetables and fiber, appears to promote a healthy body weight. Earlier this year, a study published in the Journal of Dairy Science found that rats who were fed a monkfruit-sweetened yogurt showed improvements in both the make up of their microbiome and their ability to regulate glucose—effects which were not seen in the rats who were fed yogurt sweetened with sugar.
Nonetheless, I don’t think that switching to these natural zero-calorie sweeteners gives you a free pass for unlimited consumption. Drinking zero-calorie sodas all day long is a good way to train a sweet tooth. Binging on artificially sweetened jello, pudding, and ice cream also isn't improving the nutritional quality of your diet.
The World Health Organization apparently agrees. Earlier this month, they issued a draft statement suggesting that we shouldn’t be promoting zero-calorie sweeteners (including stevia and monkfruit) “as a means of achieving weight control or reducing the risk of non-communicable diseases” such as Type 2 diabetes, citing a lack of evidence that the benefits outweigh the potential risks.
Look, I’m not trying to take all the sweetness out of your life. I’m simply suggesting that zero-calorie sweeteners (including stevia and monkfruit) should be consumed with the same restraint as you would use with sugar.
One small regular soda, sweetened coffee, or dessert is about all the added sugar an average person should eat in a day. If you want to substitute one diet soda, artificially sweetened coffee, or dessert, that would probably be fine. What probably isn't fine is substituting 10 diet sodas, artificially sweetened coffees, and desserts. Not only could it be having undesirable effects on your microbiome, but all those zero-calorie treats may also be crowding more nutritious foods out of your diet.
If you have a thought about this you’d like to share or a question you’d like me to weigh in on, you can contact me at nutrition@quickanddirtytips.com or call the Nutrition Diva listener line at 443-961-6206. and your question could be featured in a future episode!
Also, if you’re listening when this show comes out, then there’s still time to join me and lots of other Nutrition Diva listeners for the 30 Day Nutrition Upgrade that we are kicking off on September 11th. I’m going to show you a fun and effective way to improve your eating habits in a way that will last a lot longer than 30 days. You can register at nutritionovereasy.com/upgrade and if you put in the code Diva20, we’ll knock 20% off the registration free!
Nutrition Diva is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. It's audio-engineered by Nathan Semmes with script editing by Adam Cecil. Our team also Morgan Christianson, Holly Hutchings, and Davina Tomlin
Thanks for listening and remember to eat something good for me!